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'My first priority is to tell a good story': A chat with 'The Mango Bride' author Marivi Soliven


Marivi Soliven won the Palanca Award for the Novel in English in 2011 for "In The Service of Secrets", the story of two women who flee to America to start a new life, but under very different circumstances. The novel was published internationally as "The Mango Bride" (reviewed here) in April 2013.

She is currently in the middle of a book tour, but she took some time out to answer a few questions about the novel.

How did the idea for "The Mango Bride" (then, "In The Service of Secrets") come about? Did you set out to deliberately write about migration issues and social class or did those themes come later?

I never begin writing a story with a "theme" or "message" in mind, as in "Oh, I want to write on the theme of Social Class and how it affects the Immigrant Experience." 

In my experience, that sort of "message-focused" writing is best performed by essay or editorial writers. I wrote that way when composing the autobiographical narrative essays that went into "Suddenly Stateside". That book was published over a decade ago, but one of the essays "The $3 Cebuana Fiancee" was the seed of inspiration for "The Mango Bride".

When I began writing this novel, I just wanted to write a story about immigrants. My story and the stories I heard while I was working in my day job as an interpreter fed many of the scenes in the novel.

US-based Palanca awardee Marivi Soliven talks about her novel "Mango Bride" during its launch at the Manilatown Heritage Foundation Center in San Francisco. Photo by Rick Rocamora
How long did it take you to complete the novel?  Can you give readers an idea of what your writing process is like?

Two years. My writing process, in brief, is: I write every morning and strive to get honest feedback on the work.

In the book, Filipino words were translated to English within the same sentence.  In the beginning, when you read the dialogue, it can be jarring because people normally don't speak that way. Once you get used to it, though, it sounds more natural. Did you write it that way originally, or was that one of the changes made for publication?

I wrote it that way. I wanted to capture the flavor of Tagalog without losing non-Filipino readers.  I also wanted readers to notice the change in diction, the shift in register that occurs when different Filipinos are speaking English. Because you must have noticed this yourself: English is spoken differently by different people in the Philippines. The way a person speaks English—or, I have come to realize, any language—is usually a pretty good indication of his/her social class, education, upbringing and, frequently, gender.  I was very mindful of that while writing dialogue for "The Mango Bride".

Aside from changing the title, what other changes did you make, if any, to prepare the novel for international publication?  

I made extensive revisions to the original manuscript with the guidance of Sandra Harding, my editor at Penguin Random House. I trimmed the original manuscript from 135,000 down to about 95,000 words. However, that revision went beyond merely deleting passages. Even as I was excising chapters set in Manila in the 1960s (I like to think of those sections as my Pinoy "Mad Men" scenes), I was adding text.

I created a new character, augmented another, and inserted additional scenes. Manong Del and the reference to the WWII Filipino veterans' fight for benefits grew out of my editor's request to beef up Amparo's story arch. Sandra very wisely pointed out that while the novel begins and ends with Nanay Marcela, she is not actually the main character. While Marcela anchors the story, it is Amparo and Beverly who carry the plot line.

Beverly's story arch was pretty much set in the original manuscript, the version that won the Palanca as "In The Service of Secrets"; but more needed to be said about Amparo's life after she is banished to America. Her life as an immigrant and the inclusion of Manong Del were probably the most significant revisions I made in the editing process.

One of the things that made the book very engaging was the way the story was told like a telenovela. Was that style a conscious choice from the beginning?

Apart from deciding what my characters are going to do next, I never make conscious choices about what style I'm going to use. Style develops organically as I write the story. I don't usually watch telenovelas these days (unless "Scandal" or "Mad Men" count as telenovelas), but I've obviously absorbed the flavor of melodrama as it plays out in soap operas.

I remember, as a child, going into the kitchen and hearing the radio turned on loud—the lavandera and the cook were always listening to radio plays where women would declare things between sobs or shrieks, and men would speak calmly as though through gritted teeth, just before the organ or trumpet or whatever instrument was playing in the soundtrack rose to a crescendo.

I never lingered in the kitchen long enough to understand what was going on, but it all sounded very dramatic.

Why do you think people like a lot of drama in fiction?  Why do we try to escape from real-life drama only to revel in fictional drama?

I believe that people enjoy melodramatic fiction because whatever the crisis is, it is usually resolved by the end of the story. The author assures readers that the adulterous husband is punished, the mistress exposed and shamed, her illegitimate children are taken into some kind family; whatever it is, the crisis is handled. Maybe that story resonates with a reader's specific experience; perhaps it offers the reader a way to contextualize his/her problem so that s/he can find a satisfying solution. Or not.

In any case, readers of melodrama usually find some sort of catharsis when they read a dramatic story. However badly their own lives are progressing, they can take comfort that at least in that book's fictional world, everything can be resolved, and the character with whom they most identify or sympathize with is ultimately redeemed.

Some of our countrymen can be rather sensitive about how Filipinos and The Philippines are portrayed in fiction, as evidenced by the hullabaloo over Dan Brown's "Inferno", and more recently, "Pacific Rim".  As a Filipino author and as a fiction author, are you very conscious about how you portray the country and the people, or is your story and talking about real social issues—no matter how bad or how negative—more important?  

I like telling the truth, if that's what you mean. At least in so far as it serves my story. My first priority as a novelist is to tell a good story. I imagine that this is what Dan Brown and the author of "Pacific Rim" intended to do when they wrote their respective novels. Writers of fiction are not publicists. It is not only unfair but irrational to fault a novelist for failing to do an acceptable PR job. And of course, vice versa.

What would you like readers to take away from reading "The Mango Bride"?

A very wise person (whose name I now forget) said that a book is written twice: once by its author; a second time by its readers, who add whatever layers of meaning and interpretation they bring to it when reading the story. So truly, I don't know what readers take away from reading my novel. I prefer not to speculate. I would like at the very least for them to have enjoyed reading it.

What are you working on next?

Another novel.

—BM, GMA News

Marivi Soliven will be in the Philippines to promote “The Mango Bride” beginning with a book signing at National Book Store in Glorietta 1, Ayala Center, Makati City on July 27 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Click  here for more information about her upcoming scheduled appearances.
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